Prostitution and Vulnerable Bodies - 50-65

Abstract

Feminism is not a monolithic way of thinking, nor is the debate on prostitution. Throughout the work, and following feminist ethics, the prostitution system is considered as a system that reinforces gender inequality, since women are the ones who provide the body and men are the ones who provide the money. Gender runs through the prostitution issue, but it is not the only system of domination involved. In the first part of this paper, the different existing theoretical and legal models of prostitution are presented: regulatoryism, regulationism, prohibitionism, abolitionism and pro-rights. The abolitionist and pro-rights models are discussed in depth, as they are the ones that are currently the subject of an open debate at the heart of feminism. This debate has been presented as binary and immovable for more than seventy years, however, there are some points shared by both sides that offer some hope in relation to the creation of a space of understanding. In the second part, we reflect on which are the most vulnerable bodies within the prostitutional system and which are the most common inequalities that affect them. An intersectional and structural approach to the prostitution system is proposed, precisely because this system, through pimping and trafficking, violates those bodies with less socioeconomic protection—migrant, transsexual, impoverished bodies, etc.—which it then stigmatizes. Current neoliberalism, hand in hand with patriarchy, generates and propagates structural inequalities that are not only related to gender and that are reproduced and made visible within the reality of prostitution.